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Information

Marrina

Real
Name: Marrina Smallwood Occupation: Former adventurer, now queen of DeluviaIdentity: Although she has no dual identity, her existence
is not known to the general public. She is publicly known in
Deluvia. Legal Status: Naturalized citizen of Canada, with no
criminal record, citizen of DeluviaFormer Aliases: NonePlace of Hatching: Newfoundland, Canada Marital Status: MarriedKnown Relatives: Thomas (foster father), Gladys (foster
mother), Daniel (foster parents' grandson), Namor (husband)Group Affiliation: Former member of Gamma Flight and
Beta Flight, current member of Alpha flightBase of Operations: Deluvia, Atlantic OceanFirst Appearance: ALPHA FLIGHT #1

History: At least tens of thousands of years ago, an
extraterrestrial race called the Plodex had, through overpopulation,
exhausted the natural resources of their native planet.
They had, moreover, completely colonized their moons and
the neighboring planets. Dedicated to further expansion,
the Plodex conquered thousands of worlds over the following
centuries and stripped them of their resources. The Plodex
devised a special method of conquest. Great numbers of
colonization starships were sent to worlds whose dominant
life forms were still in the early stages of their cultural
development. Only one such starship would be sent to a
planet. No adult Plodex traveled in these starships, which
functioned entirely automatically, but each starship held
millions of Plodex eggs. The colonization starship would
land in the region of the planet that it determined to
be the most inhospitable to the native fauna. The starship
would draw elements from the planet and, over the next
hundred Earth years, rebuild itself into a vast colonization
complex that was rooted into the planet. Once the rebuilding
was complete, the complex would send out a hypnotic signal
that would induce representatives of each mobile form
of life on the planet to come to the complex. The most
intelligent species that survived the journey to the complex
would be judged to be the planet's dominant life form.
The complex would then take the specimen of that species
prisoner, and dissect and thoroughly analyze its physical
and genetic structure. That genetic structure would then
be imprinted upon the chromosomes of the cells of each
of the Plodex eggs. The virtually indestructible eggs
would then be fired on ballistic paths that would emerge
from the eggs would have genetic structures that were
partly that of the Plodex, and partly that of the planet's
dominant life form. According to Plodex biology, each
egg is part of a pair, and the creatures which hatch from
the pair of eggs grow up to be each other's mates. Not
all of the hatchlings will survive, much less find their
mates, but many out of the millions of each world will
do both. Furthermore, each hatchling has been genetically
programmed to conquer. As a result, the hatchlings in
many cases succeed in dominating the planet.

One of these colony ships was launched 50,000 years ago. After
10,000 years in space, one of its drive units exploded,
and the ship crashed in northern Asia on Earth during
the Ice Age. Damaged by the crash, the starship fired
off its supply of eggs before they had received their
genetic programming to enable them to survive on this
planet. One of the eggs landed in the ocean and drifted
across its floor for 40,000 years. In order to survive,
the egg became water permeable, and the adaptable creature
within the egg became amphibious. The egg was finally
discovered twenty years ago by fisherman Thomas Smallwood.
His wife Gladys forced the egg open. The creature within
the egg, still primed for genetic conditioning, instantly
took on humanoid form as soon as it made contact with
the cells of Gladys Smallwood's body. Thus, Gladys Smallwood
saw a humanoid infant hatch from the egg. Thomas and Gladys
Smallwood adopted the infant, whom they named Marrina
since Thomas found her egg at sea, and raised her as their
daughter. Neither the Smallwoods nor anyone else in their
community suspected Marrina's alien origin, and instead
believed that genetic defects were responsible for her
unusual appearance. Marrina had been "damaged"
in her hatching, and therefore had no conscious drive
to conquer, nor was she dominated by savage instincts.
Instead, she had a normal Earth girl's personality.

When Marrina seemed to reach maturity, Thomas Smallwood's grandson
Daniel told James McDonald
Hudson of the Canadian government's Department H about
her superhuman abilities. Marrina agreed to join Gamma
Flight, the entry level training team for the government's
recently organized super-agent program. She worked her
way into Beta Flight, the transitional training team,
and became eligible for Alpha
Flight, the team of active agents, just as the program
lost its federal funding. She joined Alpha Flight when
it became an independently operated team of adventurers.
It was not until after she joined Alpha Flight that she
learned of her true origin through encounters with the
Master.

The man who became the Master had been captured forty thousand
years ago by the Plodex starship that had come to Earth.
In studying the captive, the starship's mechanisms painfully
destroyed most of his body, keeping only his brain alive.
The brain eventually established control over the starship's
computer system and commanded the ship to construct a
new, perfect human body for himself. Finally, in recent
times, the Master decided to embark on world conquest.
But he had become so much a part of the starship that
he was unable to free himself from it.

The Master learned that two of the Plodex who had been contained
in the ship's eggs had hatched and existed at the present
time: Marrina and another Plodex, who would presumably
serve as her mate. The Master was determined to destroy
both Marrina and the other surviving Plodex being, in
order to revenge himself upon the Plodex race for the
torture he had suffered, and also to thwart the Plodex
plans for conquest of Earth by means of the Plodex who
had survived there. The Master broadcast a hypnotic signal
that unleashed Marrina's submerged savage instincts temporarily,
and which forced her to come to the starship. The Master
then directed the starship's mechanisms to take her prisoner
and torture her. While she was his prisoner, the Master
informed her of her true, alien origin. The other members
of Alpha Flight came to her rescue and, as the Master
had intended, destroyed so much of the starship's mechanisms
that the Master was freed from the starship, and he escaped.
The Master hoped that Marrina too would have been destroyed,
but she survived along with the rest of Alpha Flight and
their allies on the mission, the Invisible
Woman and Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner.

Namor invited Marrina to accompany him to Atlantis, and the
two soon became lovers. In an encounter with the alien
Collector, Marrina saw
inhuman-looking, savage Plodex that he had collected on
other planets and kept on his starship. Marrina was disturbed
to see these other Plodex.

The Master found the other surviving member of the Plodex on
Earth, which had a monstrous form and was fully given
over to its instincts to kill and to dominate. The Master
permitted the creature to commit a series of murders in
Canada as it studied human beings, Earth's dominant life
form, which it was genetically programmed to imitate in
appearance. The Master knew that eventually Alpha Flight,
especially Marrina, would investigate the killings. Indeed,
the Alpha Flight member named Puck summoned Marrina to
search for the creature. As she approached the creature,
she was greatly affected by chemical stimuli it gave off,
which finally triggered her savage instincts once more.
She returned to attack Puck, and then battled the Sub-Mariner,
who had followed her to Canada. The Master captured Marrina,
Namor, and Puck and took them to his submarine. There
the still savage Marrina confronted the other surviving
Plodex and came to believe it was her intended mate. Marrina,
Namor, and Puck escaped, and the Master's submarine exploded,
but Marrina allowed Namor to think she had disappeared,
and perhaps been killed in the blast. She had reverted
to her normal self, and was overcome with shame over her
savage instincts and the way she had wanted to give in
to them. Believing herself to be a monster, Marrina departed
from Puck to lead a solitary life at sea.

Having overcome her savage tendencies, Marrina has married
Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner and has become Queen of his
new undersea kingdom Deluvia. When Deluvia failed and
the Sub-Mariner returned to the surface world as an outcast,
Marrina left with him. The Sub-Mariner then accepted membership
with the hero team Avengers,
and Marrina became an associate of the team.

Unaware of that she was pregnant, Marrina's condition triggered
a transformation into a huge savage sea creature resembling
the mythical Leviathan. After sinking several fleets of
ships and ravaging Atlantis, the Avengers hunted her down.
Ultimately, it was the Sub-Mariner who mortally wounded
her with the Black Knight's
Ebony Blade. Marrina, whose body had changed back into
its normal form, was then buried by the Sub-Mariner with
the honor fitting one who had been his mate and an associate
of the Avengers.

Later, the Avengers uncovered a nest made of the remnants of
the Leviathan's destruction and eggs, which had already
hatched. Presumably an unknown number of offspring had
fled into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

Strength Level: Marrina has superhumanly strong physiology
enabling her to withstand the pressure changes beneath
the sea as well as granting her superhuman strength on
land. The exact limit of her strength is unknown.

Known Superhuman Powers: Marrina possesses numerous
superhuman traits making her totally amphibious: she can
exist indefinitely on land or under the sea. She has highly
efficient gills that enable her to extract oxygen from
water as well as lungs which enable her to breathe in
the air. Marrina's superhuman physiology enables her to
withstand the freezing temperatures of the Arctic Ocean
without injury or impairment.

Marrina's hydrodynamic proportions, sleek skin, webbed extremities,
and superhuman strength aid her in swimming. She can travel
underwater faster than one of the fastest known sea creatures,
the bottle-nosed dolphin. Marrina has been timed at speeds
approaching 48 miles per hour (51 knots), averaged over
a period of several hours, when swimming in a conventional
manner. Mardna is also capable of massive acceleration
through the water for short periods of time by shedding
the outer layer of her skin, revealing a strange, nearly
frictionless inner layer of skin that permits her to travel
through water faster than any known human-sized organism
or object. The exact speed at which she can travel in
this manner is not yet known. Her outer layer of skin
spontaneously regenerates as soon as she slows down.

Marrina's body can change shape to some unknown degree, and
it grows more inhuman-looking the longer Mardna remains
dominated by her savage instincts. Whether or not Marrina
can learn to alter her appearance by a conscious act of
will is unknown.

Marrina's skin secretes an oil which can cause extreme constriction
of the pupils of a member of another species who is exposed
to it, blinding him or her temporarily.

Limitations: Although Mardna normally had a friendly
human personality, thanks to her upbringing by her foster
parents, her mental programming by the Plodex with a savage
lust for conquest lies submerged in her consciousness.